


It's Not The End of the World

by AuralQueer



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Do Not Archive (The Magnus Archives), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 07:46:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19168882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuralQueer/pseuds/AuralQueer
Summary: Bad Things Happen Bingo: "Doesn't Realise They've Been Injured"“We did it! We won! Jon, I - ,” whatever Martin had been about to say falls from his lips with his laugh as he looks at Jon. “What’s wrong?” He’s running his eyes over Jon, sharp and calculating in his worry, and when he sees nothing: because Jon is, impossibly, uninjured - Martin turns to look around them at the battlefield, through the drifting smoke. Jon steps forward. He needs to speak. He needs to say something. Anything.But he can’t.Martin turns back to him again, and his frown is deeper. There are smudges of oil and ash on his cheeks and his hair is a tangled mess and the air is sour with the acrid smell of burning plastic and they won, and that should be enough.But then Martin looks down, following Jon’s panicked stare, and he sees the twisted lance of coal and plastic and steel protruding from his abdomen. Martin looks up, and his smile wavers. “Oh. Right.”





	It's Not The End of the World

“We did it! We won! Jon, I - ,” whatever Martin had been about to say falls from his lips with his laugh as he looks at Jon. “What’s wrong?” He’s running his eyes over Jon, sharp and calculating in his worry, and when he sees nothing: because Jon is, impossibly, uninjured - Martin turns to look around them at the battlefield, through the drifting smoke. Jon steps forward. He needs to speak. He needs to say something. Anything.

But he can’t.

Martin turns back to him again, and his frown is deeper. There are smudges of oil and ash on his cheeks and his hair is a tangled mess and the air is sour with the acrid smell of burning plastic and they won, and that should be enough.

But then Martin looks down, following Jon’s panicked stare, and he sees the twisted lance of coal and plastic and steel protruding from his abdomen. Martin looks up, and his smile wavers. “Oh. Right.”

Martin starts to fall forward, and Jon doesn’t think as he catches him. He couldn’t have done it nine months ago, and now there’s a distinct mismatch between his slender arms and the curve and weight of Martin’s body. But he catches him and Martin stares at him and blinks and his pupils are uneven. His body is as slack as a puppet with its strings cut and he’s all around Jon and he smells of wool and blood and shampoo, and Jon takes a deep breath and coughs on the smoke and tries to think. The terrible jagged thing between them pokes at Jon’s rib cage, and Jon’s breath catches.

“Right. Ok. You have to lie down - I - I can - just bear with me Martin. Stay with me.” Carefully, Jon maneuvers Martin so that he’s lying on his side on the scorched earth. Jon kneels with him, hands flickering above the thing in his belly. His stomach turns. Martin is staring across the battlefield, and his cheek is pressed into the dirt, and Jon pulls off his jacket with quick, jerky movements and folds it, pressing it under his head. A stupid, irrational part of him lingers, brushing Martin’s matted hair back from his cheek, and Martin looks up at him. There’s a small cut there, half hidden by the dirt.

Martin doesn’t look scared. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

Jon takes a deep breath and resists the urge to just curl up and weep. He puts his hand on Martin’s shoulder, and feels the way the other man relaxes. He very carefully doesn’t look at the thing in his stomach. Jon clears his throat, and imagines it’s three years ago and he’s desperately trying to impress the Archival Staff into believing that he’s qualified for this job. “You’re going to be fine, Martin. Don’t worry. Help is coming.”

Except that that makes Jon wonder whether help is coming, and he fumbles his phone out of his pocket. A part of his brain that is not him tells him Martin is still human enough to need an ambulance. Of course, that part also tells him that human beings don’t survive things like this. Jon swallows, and breathes, and feels his breath shaking in his lungs. It takes him two tries to hit 999, and then he presses his phone to the side of his face and ignores the burn on his cheek when he does so. The dial tone is long and slow and Jon can’t ignore the blood that is slowly staining Martin’s jumper and seeping into the dust.

Jon thinks he can hear shouting, somewhere, but he doesn’t know who it is and besides it really doesn’t matter because Martin is - Martin is - the operator picks up. “Hello, 999, you’ve reached the ambulance service. Can you tell me the nature of your emergency?” The woman on the other end of the phone is tired. She has a headache, and she’d been thinking about going to the bathroom just to get a little quiet. Jon doesn’t need to know any of this, but he does regret making her day infinitely more complicated.

“Yes, hello. I’m at Heathrow airport. My friend has been hurt. There was…” Jon fumbles for an explanation. The blood is starting to soak through his trousers. “An explosion. He. There’s something in his stomach.”

“Ok. Sir, can you tell me your name please?” The woman’s voice comes through the phone distantly, fighting through a blanket of static. Jon clears his throat. Martin shuts his eyes, and Jon squeezes his shoulder.

“No, no, Martin. Keep your eyes open. Look at me. It’s going to be ok, remember?” Jon’s voice is uneven and he thinks he’s panicking and he doesn’t know what to do he just needs Martin Blackwood to look at him. After a moment, Martin opens his eyes. He looks so tired.

“Sir?” Jon thinks he’s going to fall apart. But he looks at Martin, exhausted and defiant in the dust of the ruined Extinction, and he doesn’t.

“My name’s Jonathan Sims, um, Jon.”

“Ok Jon. My name’s Hannah. I’m sending someone to you now. Do you know where you are in the airport?” Jon squints at the smoke, and the splintered rubble that’s left of the runway. He breathes, and coughs.

“Uh, Terminal 5, I think. The impact zone is pretty substantial.” There’s a flicker in Jon’s head, and he sees Hannah stare up at the news, plastered with pictures of Heathrow from above. Columns of smoke spew upwards into the air. Jon wonders whether you can even see them in it.

Hannah clears her throat. “Alright. Can you tell me more about what’s happened to your friend?”

Jon looks down at Martin. There’s blood soaking through his jeans around his knees and under his shins. Martin’s whole lower half is red with it. He’s pale, and his eyes are unfocused. Jon swallows, and gently shakes him. Martin looks over at him and tries to smile. Jon smiles back at him, and a sob works its way out of his throat. On the other end of the phone, Hannah speaks softly.

“Jon?”

Jon nods, and clears his throat, and he feels the knowledge come to him even as he shares it. “Something - debris - has penetrated his abdomen. I. I think I know what to do. Thank you, Hannah. I…Send them soon. Please.” Jon sets down his phone on the ground away from the blood and searches their immediate surroundings, grabbing a lump of tarmac and dragging it through the dirt towards Martin. He meets Martin’s eyes. “This is not going to be comfortable. I apologise.”

Martin tries to speak. Instead, he coughs, and blood comes with it. Jon feels dizzy, and he doesn’t think it’s just the fumes from the melted plastic in the air. Instead he concentrates, bending down and carefully lifting Martin’s upper back, sliding the tarmac beneath him so that his stomach is raised above his heart. Martin’s breath catches on a whimper and Jon grits his teeth and tries to fight the hurricane of panic in his head.

Instead he crawls through the dust to Martin, and carefully pushes back his hair from his head. Jon leans down, curling around Martin’s face and shoulders, and presses their foreheads together. He can feel Martin’s breathing, too light and erratic, tickling his chin. “It’s going to be alright. I promise, Martin. It’s going to be ok.”

There’s a gentle tug at Jon’s sleeve, and he glances down to see Martin’s bruised hand. Jon looks back at Martin, and there’s a soft smile on his lips as he gently takes Jon’s hand. He pulls it, and Jon lets him press a kiss to his knuckles, leaving a spot of blood in his wake. “I know. S’ok.” Martin reaches up, and Jon leans down and lets him touch his cheek. Martin’s eyes are wide and wondering. His smile widens. “I’m in love with you.” He says it like they’re children and it’s a secret, precious and playful and fragile between them.

Jon’s heart lurches, and then he’s leaning forward and kissing him and Martin’s lips taste like blood and coal and burned plastic and he makes a soft sound of surprise and Jon’s hands come up to cradle his head and hold him, fierce and gentle, as he kisses him again and presses their noses together and shuts his eyes and says, “I love you too.”

But then Martin coughs again, and Jon’s veins run cold, and he winds his hand through Martin’s hair and cradles the back of his skull, kissing his forehead once, hard, before letting go. He looks into Martin’s eyes, and Martin is staring at him like he hung the sun and Jon doesn’t know what to do with that because he’s never been worthy of anyone’s love, let alone a love like Martin Blackwood’s.

For now, he presses the knowledge of what he’s going to do into the air between them, and Martin blinks. Jon feels his dizziness for a moment and nearly falls, but catches himself and moves to the thing in Martin’s stomach. “I’m sorry.” Jon presses down, and Martin gives a soft cry of pain. Jon can feel his blood, hot and wet beneath his hands, pumping slowly up and out of his body and seeping between his fingers.

He clenches his teeth. Somewhere in the distance, he hears Daisy shouting his name. On his phone, Hannah’s voice is saying something he can’t make out. There’s the sound of engines coming closer, and more immediately, Martin’s breathing as his chest shudders with every shallow breath he takes. Jon kneels and prays to a god he’s never believed in, and he looks at Martin and he forces himself to smile.

“You’re going to be ok Martin. We won.”

* * *

The hospital smells like detergent and urine. Jon hates it. No amount of Thomas Hardy can distract him from the thoughts and worries and crises of the people in the building around him, and he’d never quite realised how empty the Institute was until he was forced to spend a protracted amount of time anywhere else.

On the bed in front of him, Martin Blackwood is asleep. Jon can feel the scars of the Lonely on him, but they’re just that now: scars. Whatever hold Peter Lukas had, it’s gone, the connection broken. Something primal and terrible and separate to Jon is fiercely glad of it, hungry to reclaim Martin as its own. Jon ignores that, and sinks instead into the giddy relief that has been washing over him ever since Martin had turned with a grin to Peter on that airfield and raised a remote detonator.

Jon supposes that at some point they should learn how to solve their problems with something other than C4, but it had certainly been an effective opener.

Jon’s gaze falls and catches on the sheet over Martin’s stomach. He can almost make out the mass of bandages there.

Yes. Something other than C4, next time.

Martin doesn’t snore, not really. Instead his breathing is soft and faint, occasionally broken by a soft sigh. For the first two weeks, it had mostly been whimpers, and Jon hadn’t been sure whether he could stay. But every time he’d tried to leave he’d panicked that if he left Martin would - so he stayed. And when Martin started to whimper, he reached out and took his hand and squeezed it and tried to believe that somewhere in there Martin could feel him doing it.

Daisy brought him the books. Jon hadn’t left the hospital premises for three weeks: moving into the cafeteria and the toilets whenever someone who might like him to leave made themselves known in the ward. Knowing, it turned out, was a terribly effective tool when you didn’t want to be seen.

Of course, Daisy had figured him out in about 48 hours, though she chalked it down to Basira. The two of them had put together a wash bag for him, and Daisy had brought the first book off the shelf in the local library whenever she stopped by to check on Martin herself. Jon had been almost surprised by that: it wasn’t like they’d known each other well. But Daisy had just shrugged her broad shoulders and said, “he’s one of us, isn’t he?”

Daisy had left early that day, but not before wrapping him into a fierce hug and warning him to get some sleep before she saw him next. Jon had huffed and agreed, and she’d met his eyes until he agreed again, a little more sincerely the second time.

But Jon is alone now. The light of a late summer day spills in through the window, and outside traffic crawls slowly through the outskirts of London. The sky is bright and blue and occasionally a pigeon makes itself known near the window. The other residents of this ward are quiet too, most of them sleeping. Most of them are too weak to do anything else. It’s almost peaceful: were it not for the distant shouts of children, and the quick slap of practical shoes down the linoleum halls. The hospital radio is, mercifully, switched off in here: but the distant sound of the Top 40 creeps under the door. The quiet beep of the monitors in the ward provide a constant chirping chorus, soft and reassuring against the backdrop of tubes and bandages.

Then Martin’s monitor changes.

Jon panics, for a second, trying to decide whether to call a nurse (visiting hours have long since ended). But Martin frowns, and then he opens his mouth and shuts it again, wetting his lips. Jon stares. Martin’s hand moves, as if to push himself up. Jon puts down his book. Martin’s frown deepens, and his eyes squeeze shut. Jon sits forward, and his heart makes a decent effort to pound a bruise into the haphazard remains of his ribcage.

Martin’s fingers curl against the mint green sheets of his hospital bed, and he opens his eyes. For a second, he looks up at the ceiling. Then he turns his head on the pillow, and he stares at Jon - eyes focusing. His frown eases, and his mouth curls into a smile. “Jon?”

“Martin.” Jon breathes, and he doesn’t know if it’s a sigh or a prayer. Martin’s smile falls a little, and he tries to sit up, gasping in pain when he does so. Jon is halfway to standing without realising it, hesitantly touching Martin’s shoulders and not so much pushing him back down as suggesting the action. “You. You need to lie down.”

Martin looks down at himself, and then around them at their surroundings. “Right.” He coughs a little, and Jon is turning to pour him a cup of water without thinking. Martin takes it gratefully, and sips a little water before he goes on. “Is everyone ok?”

Jon laughs, and Martin raises his eyebrows. Jon shakes his head, and sits back down, pulling his chair closer to the bed. He takes the cup of water back from Martin and sets it on the bedside table. Then he looks up and meets his eyes. “You are the most remarkable man I’ve ever met.”

Martin frowns. “That’s not an answer?”

Jon smiles, and tries to stifle it, and can’t. “Everyone’s fine. Because of you. We’re ok.” Martin’s frown eases like a cloud slipping away from the sun. He lies back into the bed, and a wide smile dimples his cheeks.

“Good.” For a moment he just lies there, and Jon tries to figure out where the hell he’s supposed to start. But then Martin breaks the quiet. His cheeks are pink. “Um, Jon. When. With the.” Martin gestures vaguely at his stomach. “I thought I…Did you…?” Martin can’t seem to get the words out.

Jon grins, and raises an eyebrow. “Martin, if you’re going to tell me that your declaration was only in the heat of the moment then I’m sorry to inform you that mine still stands.”

“Oh.” Martin squeaks, and his blush deepens. He looks away from Jon. “Right.” Martin’s hand runs over the sheet in a slow, nervous gesture, smoothing away creases that aren’t there. “Right.”

Jon lets him worry for half a moment longer, and then he clears his throat. Martin jumps, and flinches, and Jon’s heart twists. He takes a deep breath. “I…I really did mean it, Martin. If you’ll have me. I.” Jon swallows, and somehow it’s harder to say this without the sting of smoke in the air. “I love you. I’m in love with you. I’ve known for some time now.”

Martin is staring at him, and his eyes are bright and his lips are parted. “Just so you know I’m pretty sure I’m still dreaming.”

Jon laughs, and tries to ignore the burn of his own blush. “Is that a yes?”

“Yes.” Martin breathes, and Jon can hear a thousand weeks of longing in the word: a thousand cups of tea, and words of kindness, and accidental brushes of their knuckles. His blush deepens. Outside, the pigeons coo. “Yes, Jon, of course. I love you too.”

Jon nods, and smiles, and feels as giddy as the child he never really was. “Right. Well. That’s good.”

Martin snorts. “Come over here and kiss me, idiot.” His tone is light, but it doesn’t quite cover the soft wonder in the words, and Jon feels something in his chest ache as he stands and leans carefully over Martin’s bed.

In the space between their chests, with Martin broad and warm and whole beneath him, Jon hesitates. “On one condition.”

For a second, doubt flickers across Martin’s brow, and Jon reaches out to smooth it away with his thumb. Martin’s blush deepens, and it’s red against his freckles. “What?” Martin breathes, and his voice is barely a whisper.

Jon looks at him: at the soft curve of his nose and the messy line of his eyebrows and the thick curl of his eyelashes. Martin Blackwood is, he thinks, the most beautiful man he’s ever met.

“Don’t do that to me again.”

Martin laughs. “I won’t if you won’t.” And then he reaches up and pulls Jon down and kisses him, and Jon kisses him back, deep and longing and awkward and warm.

They’re ok. That’s enough.


End file.
